If you loved Josh O’Connor as the hot priest in the new Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, then you should run, not walk to stream another masterful O’Connor performance, The Mastermind on MUBI. In this quiet, hilarious period piece from acclaimed filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, O’Connor stars as J.B. Mooney, an unemployed middle-class American who blows up his life to live out his fantasy of becoming a clever art thief. It won’t take you long to realize that the film’s title is a cheeky joke: A mastermind, this man is not. Reichardt goes behind deconstructing the ‘70s heist film with this one—she absolutely obliterates it.
Photo: MUBI /Courtesy Everett Collection